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The Great Hack (documentary film). Produced and directed by Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim. Netflix, 2019. 1 hour 54 minutes
Author(s) -
Seadle Michael
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.24333
Subject(s) - referendum , theme (computing) , journalism , context (archaeology) , presidential system , argument (complex analysis) , politics , media studies , brexit , sociology , history , political science , law , computer science , world wide web , business , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , european union , economic policy
The documentary's core argument is that big data and targeted data have been used successfully to influence enough “persuadable” voters to influence the outcome of key elections such as the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential race, and the film pushes this theme by picking just the right facts to make a case. This review will attempt to put The Great Hack in its historical, political, and technical context, and will try to answer the question: How dangerous was Cambridge Analytica? The documentary claims the technology is to some considerable degree dangerous, although perhaps less dangerous than those involved with Cambridge Analytica like to think. The film is certainly worth viewing, as long as the viewer remembers that it is good journalism, but not a scholarly analysis.